Select Shots

A little bit like the blind leading the blind, eh?  Except that in this case it is the barely-feeding-myself leading the completely inept.  I have a video of this, which would take blogger days to load, so you will have to be happy with a still life.  The video is very cute, though, especially when Isaac removes his pacifier in order to eat from the plate himself.  And, look, do you see it?  I made a craft.  If I had an arrow I would point it at that snowflake hanging to the left of Sarah's head and mark exclamation points all over the photo.

A little late for a photo of the Christmas concert.  I found this one on the camera (after I finally recharged the battery) and couldn't resist posting little Joseph in his first stage appearance.  Clearly he had found me amongst the sea of parents and was able to smile for the family camera.  Third from the left, shirt and tie.

Christmas concert photos are never very good, are they?  But, for the record, there is Ben and his main squeeze, Cecelia, debuting as St. Joseph and Our Lady.  Silent roles.

Couldn't resist snapping this shot of Sarah the other night as she slept for the first time in a crib.  She has, up until this point, been in a playpen next to our bed.  I shuffled some kids around and found a place for her in the crib that we bought ten years ago for the twins.  It was used at the time, it is now well-used.

The nights are cold and even colder when one can't turn on the furnace for fear of running out of heating fuel because the tank is going to be replaced next Tuesday and needs to run down to empty and the gauge already says empty despite the fact that the oil-company lady says that gauges are notoriously inaccurate.  Take a breath.  At least we have a woodstove.

Does anyone else feel like January and February stretch out before one's self like a great white expanse of waiting for spring?  I need vitamin D in something other than oral form.  These two months of winter are the most trying of the year for me and I literally find myself gritting my teeth and bearing down with the hope that my mental efforts might just stave off depression and bring on more daylight hours.  There is nothing so unrelieved as the loneliness of the stay-at-home mother during the frigid months of a Canadian winter.

Well, actually, there are plenty of situations that are far worse; I was just going for dramatic effect.  In fact, my 85 year old Polish neighbour (who practically begs for a visit to relieve her loneliness) told me when I met her at the grocery store that, as a ten year old girl, she and her family were given one hour's notice to gather their things before being put into a cattle car and shipped to Siberia by the Russians where they lived for 4 years.  I promised to visit her on a regular basis and I will bring the twins to snack on Polish chocolate and oral history.  See, there is plenty to relieve the white landscape of a Canadian winter:  tales of Siberia.